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Wednesday, 13 June 2018

Bites and a broken bed: New details in case of Sudan teen who killed rapist husband

Slashes to her hands, bite marks embedded in her shoulder, and a broken bed.

As the defense team for Sudanese teenager Noura Hussein submitted an appeal to save her life, CNN has learned new details about the struggle that unfolded when she killed her husband, who she says raped her following their forced marriage.

"Noura and indeed the women and girls of Sudan have too often been treated as chattel to be traded and given away as though they are property and as though they have no rights," activists with the Justice for Noura campaign said in a statement on Thursday. "Here today, united and in one voice we wish to say -- enough!"

The teenager's story has shone a spotlight on the issues of forced marriage and marital rape in Sudan, where the legal age of marriage is only 10 and marital rape is legal.

Hussein's family compelled her to marry at 15, but she refused and ran away for three years. Her father forced her to complete the wedding ceremony in April 2017. After refusing to have sex with her husband on their "honeymoon," she says he raped her as his brother and two cousins restrained her. A day later her husband tried to rape her again, and she stabbed him to death. When she went to her parents for support, they turned her in to the police.